On April 15, 2003, the SPCA seized 20 healthy, happy, clean and groomed Lhasa Apsos, 6 puppies, a cat, one pug dog, two sheep, and an old cross breed dog, from award-winning Port Alberni Lhasa apso breeders, Ron and Heather Graham. Two of the puppies were killed by the SPCA because it put them in the chronically diseased Port Alberni SPCA where they caught Parvo. More dogs died while in the SPCA's "care". They were all subjected to extreme distress BY the SPCA by being put in concrete cells, some intact males together, and exposed to disease, noise, strangers, strange dogs, dietary changes, and rough handling. For the dogs to be taken from their home and subjected to these horrors is nothing less than animal abuse by the SPCA. The PCA act allows the SPCA to leave animals in their familiar environment and demand improvements on site. In almost 100% of cases of SPCA seizures, that is the humane thing to do. But no hugely inflated "seizure costs" could be demanded as ransom to get animals back in that case. There would be no media interest so no flood of donations from animal-lovers who believe the SPCA is a honourable organization. The SPCA demanded more than $100,000 from the Grahams whose only asset is their small, rural home. God help you if you are a weak target of the BC SPCA!

The Grahams were falsely presented as monsters in the media and in court and in their community. Heather Graham had to be hospitalized because of the horrors of that morning - her house full of uniformed strangers, the media (illegally brought by the SPCA), RCMP, vets and SPCA hangers-on. Even now, SPCA harassment goes on with invasive inspections by Irene Towell - the same SPCA officer who took Heather's healthy, happy dogs from her, stopped Heather from letting the dogs out of their night-crates for hours, and when the dogs soiled the crates, used that as evidence of distress in court to criminalize and disgrace Heather. Towell and CEO Daniell falsely made Heather out to be a monster. Towell was honoured for doing this by a special award from Daniell. Towell's inspections are accompanied by intrusive staff and RCMP who crawl under the Graham's outbuilding and make insulting remarks about Heather being a pack-rat. Every time the SPCA attacks Heather, her heart and blood pressure are dangerously affected. The BC SPCA is not the honourable organization of animal lovers that the media and the courts think it is, but that is changing. One BC lawyer has opined that he might make a speciality of protecting victims of the SPCA.

The Grahams won over 500 ribbons for their dogs. Real animal abusers do not win ribbons. The SPCA called the Grahams puppymillers. Real puppymillers do not have one or two litters a year. Most of the Grahams dogs were pets that the Grahams were too kind to dump. The pug was a rescue that was on heart medicine. In fact, the Grahams had ten years of vet records that proved they gave better care to their dogs than the SPCA does. The SPCA kept the sheep in a pen on gravel! The cat was a rescue and was happy and healthy.

The PCA Act actually says that the owner of the animals must be given a chance to correct the "alleged distress". The SPCA, by stopping Heather from letting her dogs out of their crates, created the distress and then criminalized the Grahams for the distress that it had caused. The Grahams could not afford legal representation and the court believed the SPCA's highly questionable "evidence", such as there being no clean water (the Graham's rural property is not serviced) , when Mr Graham had pointed out to Towell (during the seizure) a 45 gallon drum of fresh water he had just brought with him from work as he does regularly. There is, as with every case of SPCA abusive power that AAS knows of, many more shocking details of SPCA actions than we have to the time to relate. The truth is starting to come out and it is frightening.

This dangerous abuse of power must - and will - be stopped. There will be an honest SPCA in BC, or there will be no SPCA in BC. That is up to the current Board of Directors of the BC SPCA.

Healthy pups eating high-quality food until the SPCA seized them and infected them with parvo virus, killing two of them